Installing Joomla and WordPress

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Overview

Now we need to get full installations of Joomla and WordPress, which you can download from their websites. If you are running Windows you will want to download the zipped versions of Joomla and WordPress. {loadposition adposition5}Once you have download the zipped packages, you will need to extract or unzip them by RIGHT+Clicking on them and selecting ‘Extract all’. Once extracted, you will see that the both the Joomla and WordPress frameworks consist of files and folders within once central folder. The files types consist of php, css, html, javascript, xml, jpg, and png files, etc.. A Joomla and WordPress website starts with that central ‘folder’ and all of the folders and files contained therein.

A Joomla and WordPress website is essentially a folder with all of the Joomla or WordPress files and folders located inside, connect it to a MySQL database and you have a Joomla or WordPress website. When you download Joomla or WordPress, you are downloading the whole thing (minus the database) in one compressed folder, which you then have to decompress (unzip). Once the folder is unzipped, you can rename the folder to anything you like to differentiate it from other sites (folders) on your webserver. Each ‘website’ is another instance of this complete folder or directory. In computer lingo, the word "directory" is often substituted or preferred over the word folder. Repeating this concept, if you decided to host multiple Joomla and WordPress websites on your server, each website will need its own uniquely named directory containing all of the files and directories within, as well as a MySQL database to go with it.

Materials

You will need to go to the Joomla website and download two version of Joomla. I recommend downloading the zip versions of Joomla 1.5.x, a classic older version, and Joomla 2.5.x (the x signifies the latest sub version.

You will also need to go to visit WordPress website and download the latest zip version of WordPress currently it is WordPress 3.4.2.

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Video Tutorials

This series of video tutorials will walk you through installing Joomla 1.5, Joomla 2.5, and WordPress 3.4.2. The goal is to set up three development websites on your local computer in order to begin learning how to use Joomla and WordPress.